De drie portretten

by Ivan Turgenev, Ivan Toergenjev

Russisch Meesterwerken deel 3 bevat: De drie portretten, Lentestromen, De hond, De levende relikwie, Het afspraakje, De zangeres.

Genres: Literature

284 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev (Cyrillic: Иван Сергеевич Тургенев) was a novelist, poet, and dramatist, and now ranks as one of the towering figures of Russian literature. His major works include the short-story collection A Sportsman’s Sketches (1852) and the novels Rudin (1856), Home of the Gentry (1859), On the Eve (1860), and Fathers and Sons (1862).

These works offer realistic, affectionate portrayals of the Russian peasantry and penetrating studies of the Russian intelligentsia who were attempting to move the country into a new age. His masterpiece, Fathers and Sons, is considered one of the greatest novels of the nineteenth century.

Turgenev was a contemporary with Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy. While these wrote about church and religion, Turgenev was more concerned with the movement toward social reform in Russia.

Reviews

[Daan Könings · Rating 4 out of 5]

Altijd genieten van de verhalen van Toergenjev

[Edmund Bealby-wright]

Turgenev's third published story is again told by a fictional storyteller, this time it is an illustrated lecture, with three portraits on the wall to focus his audience on the love triangle between Vassily, a charming rake and eldest son of an otherwise tedious family, Olga, a resentful but timid girl adopted as an orphan into the family, and Pavel, a harmless and amiable neighbour who is set up as Olga's betrothed.

The fact that the storytelling is out-sourced shows that Turgenev does not want to get his hands dirty with this nasty and ultimately melodramatic plot. It is a very entertaining read, despite the stock characters. The framing device is given more attention; some humour is derived from the narrator's descriptions of life in the countryside in the 1770's before the civilising influence of French clavichords. Here the audience does not seem to serve as Turgenev's imagined critic, but as Turgenev himself, who disparages the insensitivity of the narrator parenthetically: (Rubbish! rubbish! thought I... nothing in the world makes a strong impression on you, my dear fellow!')

At a dramatic crisis, we are told that Olga 'did not fall into a swoon - people don't fall into swoons except on the stage -' At the final scene however, we are told that 'Olga shrieked and fell unconsciously to the floor.' This is a story that can only be told plausibly within a story. The subtle analysis of human behaviour that Turgenev is capable of is somewhat wasted on such dramatic personae. The story is like Olga herself: 'with all her fine ways, she was still pretty much of a savage.'

Lacking the wonderful insights that lie ahead when Turgenev stops using lesser men to tell his stories, and finds characters not from stock, but from real life, this story ends badly for all the characters in it, but since they never earned our sympathies, it is in its way satisfying, though a satisfaction of a clever drama on the stage.

[Piet · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have always thought Turgenev to be a difficult writer but in these stories he is the opposite.
The dog is a kind of ghost story, the living relic a taoistic lesson of enjoying what is left in life and the springstreams is saved from being a kitchenmaid romance by the last chapter.
Simple language, some humour but I must admit a nice description of the temptation art of a 22-year-old woman Maria in the springstreams.

[Tatyana · Rating 4 out of 5]

translated by Constance Garnett (1897)

"Tears are like a storm; after them one is always calmer."
“Слезы — что гроза: после них человек всегда тише.”

"In our day one cannot help liking people who think little about themselves, because they are exceedingly rare …"
“В наш век нельзя не любить людей, мало помышляющих о самих себе, потому что они чрезвычайно редки …”

[Ashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

*I read the Isabel F. Hapgood translation.

[Don Cafone · Rating 3 out of 5]

Затянуто, но чуток напоминает Чехова, точней наоборот.

[Stevo Ilišković]

...neiskusnu, stidljivu, ali samoljubivu djevojku lakše primamiti umom, negoli srcem.

[Mohsen Rajabi · Rating 1 out of 5]

داستان کوتاه‌های تورگنیف اصلا مانند رمان‌هایش شاخص نیستند و چندان جذابیتی هم ندارند. من این چند روز چند داستان کوتاه از او خواندم و به جز داستان رؤیا هیچ کدام دیگر به نظرم خوب نبود.
در واقع مشکل داستان کوتاه‌های تورگنیف (و شاید بشود گفت مشکل کلی تورگنیف از نظر من) پایان‌بندی به شدت نامناسب داستان. البته گاه این پایان‌بندی نامناسب در حد یک پاراگراف است ولی لطمه بدی به داستان می‌زند.
مثلا در همین داستان تصویر، آخرین پاراگراف به شدت تصنعی است و به نظر می‌رسد نویسنده به صرف اینکه می‌خواسته شخصیت داستانش به مجازات برسد این پاراگراف را اضافه کرده است